NHS England signposts upcoming £18m health and justice EPR
- 14 August 2024
- NHS England has issued a pre-procurement notice for an £18 million EPR system for the health and justice sectors
- The EPR will improve access to health records in prisons and detention centres, ensuring integration with broader healthcare systems
- Suppliers have until 6 September 2024 to register their interest
NHS England has issued a pre-procurement notice for an £18 million electronic patient record (EPR) system covering the justice system.
The EPR will be used to capture health record data across prisons, youth referral services and asylum seeker detention centres, amongst other settings in “the Health and Justice area.”
It forms part of NHS England’s digital strategy to provide more equitable access to comprehensive health records within the justice system, with a focus on improving integration between prison systems and primary care and “[ensuring] that health records of any individual is captured and made available to other health practitioners across all health care settings”.
The pre-procurement process is open to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), but not to voluntary, community and social enterprises.
Under the scope of the pre-procurement notice, the EPR must meet the following conditions:
- Provides equitable access to comprehensive health records, whilst having seamless interoperability with broader primary care electronic systems and other existing technologies within these settings
- Is safe and able to manage health records that enable timely access to medical interventions, preventative care, and holistic wellness for every individual within the justice system
- Provides data analysis tools for commissioners to access and improve care to patients
The supplier must also be able to “provide insight into future developments that will improve the system functionality, accessibility to data [and] reduce data entry errors,” the notice states.
The deadline for suppliers to express their interest is set for 6 September 2024, with a market engagement event anticipated to take place on 16 September 2024 in Leeds. The full pre-procurement notice can be found here.
In June, NHS England scrapped its £300 million digital pathways framework aimed at modernising primary care IT.
Looking to keep up-to-date with NHS IT tenders, framework agreements and contract notices? You can access all these opportunities within a few clicks with Digital Health Intelligence.
Filter, search and receive alerts on procurement activity to streamline your bidding. Our subscription service is the sector’s most detailed resource of NHS systems, infrastructure and key digital health contacts, available all in one place. Find out more.
1 Comments
Has NHS England done a risk assessment – & taken legal advice – on the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (& subsequent amendments) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rehabilitation_of_Offenders_Act_1974 on this?
It would seem that, effectively, the fact of time spent in the Justice system – or even time spent on remand prior to trial – would become a permanent part of the individual’s cradle-to-grave medical record: which is what prevented previous efforts to improve care for often very vulnerable patients.
TPP had a contract for prison service EPR renewed in 2016: does anyone have any information on how well it worked in practice? My impression before I retired (2013) was that the major problem was the organisation – or lack of organisation – of the whole judicial system rather than lack of an EPR.
Do those bidding for the contract have to allow for the organisational problems as well as the medical/EPR ones?
Finally, there is another organisation with similar requirements for individual medical records to be available hen individuals & groups of individuals are transferred frequently between units: the MOD.
Has *their* experience – & lessons learned – been considered by NHS England?
Comments are closed.